Karwaan is an upcoming travel comedy film starring Dulquer Salmaan, Irrfan Khan and Mithila Palkar in lead roles. The film is directed by Akarsh Khurana, the director of ‘High Jack’ which released earlier this year, and produced by Ronnie Screwvala and Priti Rathi Gupta. With just one film to his credit, Akarsh Khurana has showed us that he does indeed, give much importance to the music in his films. The multicomposer album to ‘High Jack’ was a quirky album, high on EDM and fusion and whatnot. Two composers entities, Anurag Saikia and SlowCheeta & Shwetang Shankar, who had composed for that film too, are retained for this album, while two others, namely, Imaad Shah (who composed ‘Calcutta Kiss’ from ‘Detective Byomkesh Bakshy’ in collaboration with Saba Azad) and Prateek Kuhad (debuting in Bollywood as a composer, but who has already sung a song ‘Kho Gaye Hum Kahan’ in ‘Baar Baar Dekho’) are the two new additions to the soundtrack. So let’s jump in and see whether the journey that listening to this soundtrack is, turns out to be a memorable one!

SlowCheeta and Shwetang Shankar’s Dhaai Kilo Bakwaas actually turns out to be three minutes of insane fun; the duo mixes cool Malayalam sounds with a trippy hip-hop arrangement, and an amazing rap by SlowCheeta which has some bloody relatable lyrics interrupts the songs for about a minute. I still don’t understand by SlowCheeta calls himself that! He raps so rapidly, I mean! 🤣 Anish John and Sanjeev Kumar Nair are behind the main vocals, and whoever is the main vocalist out of the two, sounds a lot like Rahul Pandey or Jubin Nautiyal. The lyrics by SlowCheeta are hilarious; about how the plans of a group that has set out on a trip, go haywire.

To link to SlowCheeta’s second song, where he just raps and doesn’t compose, we need to enter young talent Anurag Saikia’s territory of the album. Heartquake is everything ‘Selfish’ (Race 3) was trying to be — a breezy and gentle Hinglish romantic ballad. Anurag however, gets it right because of his wonderful use of sound. The way the song starts itself, with the guitar loop and a tribal chant, is enough to pull you in. And as Papon starts with his dreamy voice, you fall into a lilt along with the beautiful mandolins, strings and tablas that Saikia has employed in the arrangements. Akarsh Khurana’s lyrics work because they don’t seem to be trying too hard, but are just right. One English word in each line isn’t a low allowance, I agree, but somehow, everything fits in beautifully. Maybe it has to do with the fact that Anurag’s composition is the seamlessly beautiful. The coda at the end going “Mashallah.. yeh sama..” is so beautiful, as well. But where does SlowCheeta come into the picture, you ask? Well, he features in the Aftershocks Version of the song, where Anurag re-composes the song to make it fit for a trippy beat and an EDM vibe which sounds like it fell out of the plane from the ‘High Jack’ soundtrack and landed in the caravan in the ‘Karwaan’ soundtrack. 😃 The new composition is really catchy as well; SlowCheeta aptly adds his signature punch with a punchy rap, while Papon now pronounces ‘Heartquake’ as ‘Heart-ku-wake’, which sounds a bit appealing, I must admit! The arrangements for this track are nowhere near the original, obviously, but at least the composer didn’t put the same composition through an endless EDM loop and make it sound like an unnecessary remix! 👍

Anurag Saikia’s part of the album ends up with the heard-before but still engaging travel ballad Chota Sa Fasana, which again uses electronic music as its base and that’s why it becomes so entrancing. I’m sure the composer could’ve made the background a bit more ‘happening’, but it seems deliberately muffled to give the feel of an immersive journey, when you just stare out of the window and feel the breeze on your face. The ‘Oh-oh’ chants after every line of the hookline are enjoyable, as well as Arijit Singh’s trademark vocals; I admit I took my time to like them in this song, but I eventually did! As long as Anurag Saikia keeps his compositions this strong, though, any flaw or discrepancy in the arrangements or vocals would be completely overlooked!

The next artist that stands out in the soundtrack is Prateek Kuhad, who has his separate couple of songs in the album to show his mettle. The mellow Kadam transcends you to this dreamy mind space, where the artist uses his wonderful guitar loops to calm you down, and his distinct voice gives the song an edge above other songs of the same type, say, by Jasleen, who usually composes in the same style. The lyrics too, are by Prateek, and he writes them very meaningfully; they are kind of on the lines of the theme of self-discovery. If ‘Kadam’ gets repetitive for you, though, Saansein is what you’re looking for. This too, starts as a very plain and simple song; it sounds like a sad song almost. The piano in the initial portions is just too sweet to get over, until the composer adds a bass line that gets you nodding your head along to it, and then he adds shakers, too! The composition too, is catchy, and there comes a point where he leaves it to the drums and guitars to take over, and boy, do they take over! This is the food your head-nod needs! Eagerly waiting to hear more of Prateek’s music in the coming months!

Finally, Imaad Shah (Composer) and Saba Azad (Singer) present Bhar De Hamara Glass, an irresistible retro number with some cool sound effects. However, the voice gets a bit irritating after a bit, and I can’t really see myself listening to this song over and over! Therefore, it’s signature Madboy/Mink stuff, but just doesn’t seem right over here!

Just like ‘High Jack’, we get another melodious album for Karwaan! This is a ‘TRIP’py Karwaan you must take a ride in!

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